Our Staff
MIchael van dongen - Music director
Michael van Dongen is a conductor, violinist, arranger, and teacher. He earned a Bachelor of Music at McMaster University in Hamilton, studying with violinist Marta Hidy. He has been working with the NYOA since 1997, has been conducting with the organization for more than 20 years and is now the Music Director of the Niagara Youth Symphonic Orchestra.
Michael currently works as a warehouse associate with Crossroads C & I. From 1994 to 2021 he taught with Niagara Elementary Instrumental Music in the District School Board of Niagara. Michael is a freelance violinist and has been a member of the Niagara Symphony since 1995, Playing in the first violin section. Michael is a member of the group Jack van Ginger, a cover band of mostly Canadiana music around the Niagara Region. He is also often found performing in some fantastic shows at the Fallsview Casino in Niagara Falls.
George cleland - Concert conductor
George Cleland has been the conductor of the Brock University String Orchestra since 2017 and the Peninsula Orchestra since 2007. He was a finalist in the Timmins Symphony Orchestra Conductor Search in May 2016. George plays regularly as a violinist with the Niagara Symphony Orchestra, the Brantford Symphony Orchestra, the Windsor Symphony Orchestra, the Southern Ontario Lyric Opera, and the World Rock Symphony Orchestra. He was a member of the World Rock Symphony Bangkok tour of Return to Grace in 2015 and he played in Toronto for the Bolshoi Ballet’s tour of North America in a production of Swan Lake in 2012. He is the violinist for Garden City Productions, playing Fiddler on the Roof, Spamalot, The Addams Family Musical, Beauty and the Beast, and Oliver.
George has been viola coach and assistant conductor for Niagara Youth Orchestra, and instructor for Suzuki Niagara, and on staff at Brock University since 2003. He holds a Bachelor of Music from the University of Ottawa and a Master of Music from the University of Akron.
LIsa donati - Concert conductor
Lisa Donati completed her Bachelor ofMusic Performance at Wilfrid Laurier University, and her Masters of Music Performance at the Royal Academy ofMusic in London, England. She studied with international soloists Michael Thompson and Richard Watkins, and the natural and baroque horns with Andrew Clark. Lisa then continued studies in Toronto at the Glenn Gould School of the Royal Conservatory of Music’s Artist Diploma Program with Christopher Gongos. Lisa has played with the National Youth Orchestra of Canada, the National Academy Orchestra of Canada, the London International Orchestra of Academia, and the Britten-Pears Orchestra in England.
During her time in London, Lisa performed with the London Sinfonietta at such engagements as the BBC Proms in the Royal Albert Hall, the Re-Opening of the Royal Festival Hall broadcast live on BBC Radio, and recorded with them for EMI Records at Abbey Road Studios with Icelandic band Sigur Rós. She performed live on BBC Radio alongside Michael Thompson, and in 2008 was featured on CBC Radio in Canada. In 2008, Lisa performed in the Opera Ischia Orchestra in Italy. Lisa has also performed with the Toronto Philharmonia, the Niagara Symphony Orchestra, The Windsor Symphony Orchestra, Orchestra London, and Toronto’s Trillium Brass Quintet.
Lisa is the Orchestra Conductor at the Niagara Symphony Orchestra’s Summer Music Camp, where she also conducts the Concert Band and has been wind and brass faculty since 2011. She has been the Wind and Brass coach of the Niagara Youth Orchestra since 2011, and is a regular guest Conductor and Coach of the Peninsula Orchestra. Lisa maintains a studio of brass students, many of whom have gone on to study music atMcGill, Toronto, Laurier, and Brock Universities.